


Metal Angels

by stigmatasis



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alleged Psychosis, Character Death, Death, Hospitalization, Illusions, M/M, Minor Character Death, Profanity, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 03:44:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15525306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stigmatasis/pseuds/stigmatasis
Summary: There was clock that hung on the wall beside Frank's door, and he couldn't help but to look upon it, scrutinizing the way the two hands moved a half of a second too quickly. Timing was perhaps one of the most vital aspects of existence, and Frank had all but begged for a sign that the times were changing.*Two frozen hearts reach for warmth in each other, but metal angels can be far more tempting than love, and these icy souls can shatter like the pale moon at dawn.





	Metal Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired in part by Coteau Twins' "Alice"
> 
> "Green Groweth the Holly" - Written by Henry VIII, King of England
> 
> Also available on my Wattpad account! @stigmatasis

_"When I lose them I'll ache, shattered like a pale moon."_

[Metal Angels: OST](https://open.spotify.com/user/phantomxmolko/playlist/3ANTqFH0itzFfifmu987bw?si=BBJ4rFXKRh2iwlyLrj5aQg)

❁

**WITH THE RELEASE**  of his breath, Frank sent a handful of tiny, feathery seeds from the head of a dandelion spinning into the air, carrying wishes with them that he prayed would come true. They danced before his eyes, the chill of November air infiltrating his worn, black coat, a weathered piece of clothing that he hadn't really cared too much for—he had always been fond of the cold, and didn't bother with coats, scarves, mittens, and the like.

   The gale carried his tiny wishes along with it toward the east, and soon, they were gone from sight, taken into the grey and imposing sky. He twisted the remaining green, pliant stem between his fingers, his eyes fixated upon one point in time, one location below him from his hilltop perch, and he saw all that he wanted and nothing he did not welcome.

_Self-crucifixion, voluntary hanging, selectively invisible creatures he called friends burning his body for the sake of transcendence;_  all what occupied his mind in his solus hours. He was alone, but never lonely, exposed to voices of perhaps his own creation and the feeling of otherworldly presences to take on the manifestation of those sacred auras.

   There was always something more behind the desolate sky, Frank was sure of nothing but that and that alone. He felt there was an existence to be fulfilled outside of this one, and perhaps it came from traumatic events of the childhood, or a mere dissatisfaction with life that no one could blame him for when looking on the files under his name in the library a few years from now.

   Frank removed his coat. His body was splayed across the rough grass atop the hill, his back slightly arched over the peak. His head was turned toward the sky, small blades tickling his ears and cheeks in a delicate manner. He closed his eyes, and he heard singing, tiny tunes that played in his mind at all times, hidden deep within the crevice cutting into his psyche. His dreams were alive, and existence and time were stilled in his stolen juncture.

   He rendered no control over his own mind at times, and it was not only welcomed but encouraged in these moments that he shared with himself and his otherworldly friends, hidden away in an internal pocket where he kept all valuable memories. Among his quaint collection of holier times, there lived the dreams of his mother before her tragic end, the pain he felt at her passing balanced out by the joy he felt in his times with Gerard.

   Frank imagined that Gerard was at his window by now, and his moment came to a halt as sudden heartbeats took power over his being and willed him to stand, grasping his coat between his curled fingers. He inhaled, deep and sharp, like the breath of the morning after the bitter end of dreams on the brink of night terrors.

   He found himself running, his heart at the head of direction as the world blurred from his vision while his speed grew with his anticipation. He ran in quick bursts, like the jack-rabbit prowled upon by the impish fox. The thought of the simile brought forth images of brown clumps of hair, matted together by red against a white floor, and he reached a hand into his own ever-growing brunette locks. He smiled, small and detached.

❁

**GERARD'S FINGERS WERE**  cold, as always. Frank appreciated the frosty touch as he held the young man's hand—Frank himself was barely a man, a freshly turned sixteen-year-old with child-like tendencies to carry him through his short life as the sacrificial lamb of a greater existence. The innocence must always be preserved.

   Gerard's legs dangled over the edge of the long, cylindrical stump of wood he sat on, his chin resting upon the cool surface of Frank's windowsill. He stayed outside in the chill, knowing of Frank's love for the cold and welcoming the touch of the boy's fingertips across his flesh. The five fingers to the left were always smooth, and the five to the right were always callused and worked.

   Gerard reached down beside him with his free hand, removing it from the warm, soft flesh of Frank's cheek. His fingers were met with the sharp edges of holly leaves as he plucked a small bough from the bushes that grew along the side of the boy's home. The petite bunch was placed gently on the windowsill, and Gerard's eyes met Frank's with a shining intensity that communicated more than words could and almost as much as touch always did.

   He parted his lips, his breath visible in the air, and he found his hand brushing his Frankie's cheek once again, the small boy's scent mingling with his own. He spoke softly, his lips just brushing the shell of Frank's ear as he twirled a lock of Frank's hair around his forefinger.

    _"Green groweth the holly, so doth the ivy. Though winter blasts blow never so high, green groweth the holly."_  The words were familiar to Frank, hushed and whispered, a promise that he kept even closer to his heart than the callings of a greater being—perhaps it was the voice of Christ, the son that was worshiped and loved by all, and Frank had hoped it was so. Anything less would have left him Godless, and the cross put around his neck by his father would have been nothing more than that—a cross, with no meaning to behold. There were even times when his desperation for a faith brought Frank to think that maybe Gerard was the divine son of God, come back to bless the world with His teachings when the time had come, but it was absurd. Gerard was perfect, but perfection was subjective, and Frank had an acquired taste. He knew better than to fall for the simpleminded teachings of most and was sure he was the enlightened one of them all. He remembered now—his sources had showed him the world, and he had only found a few things worth cherishing; humanity was not of them, and he did not value his own human form.

   "As the holly groweth green and never changeth hue, so I am,  _ever hath been,_  unto my lady true," Gerard continued on, the poem his pledge of faithfulness and devotion to the small creature that held his heart warily but firmly in his cold hands. His fingers had now trailed to the back of Frank's neck, and he placed a gentle kiss against the softened line of his lover's jaw. A light giggle floated from the younger's lips, his eyes bright and full of love, all the noises within his mind ceasing as Gerard took over his time and attention.

   He leaned back a bit, his fingers still clasping onto Gerard's own; it was his right hand, the callused hand, the penning hand, with which he wrote his love for Gerard in word form and his requiem for the people. He arose from his chair by the window—the rocking chair his mother had left behind—and motioned for Gerard to crawl inside. The man was eager and quickly shimmied his way into Frank's room, his arms finding their way around Frankie who proceeded to fall into Gerard's chest, his head resting against the elder's thumping breast. The rhythm of his even heartbeats was a great comfort to him. He carefully reached behind them and slipped the holly leaves from the windowsill, twirling them between his fingers.

   Gerard's hand trailed down Frankie's arm, meeting his fingertips and raising them to his lips, peppering gentle pecks along the callused digits. Frank's eyes were hooded, his head resting just under Gerard's chin.

   "As the holly groweth green with ivy all alone, when flowers cannot be seen and greenwood leaves be gone," Frank whispered. His voice sounded regretful, a tone that Gerard hadn't picked up on, as he was too taken with the boy he had been privileged to behold, lost within his immense love that could smother ten men.

   "Now unto my lady, promise to her I make, from all other only to her I me betake," Gerard said with finality. He had finished the poem early, the pair never uttering the final farewell verse to each other, as goodbyes were never to be made between the two if either had a word in the matter (at least as far as Gerard was concerned; Frank believed in some priorities more than others, and the realm that awaited him was just barely more important than his love). Frankie sighed in contentment and something else, but it was passed over, and his hands were occupied with Gerard's flesh, skimming over his skin like the light wings of a swan over the clear surface of a lake. The ripples he left in his wake were felt internally by Gerard, a swarming feeling of love at it's purest coursing through the veins under his flesh and straight to his heart.

   They soon found themselves sitting in the floor, Gerard's back against Frank's bed with the boy held closely against his chest. There was clock that hung on the wall beside Frank's door, and he couldn't help but to look upon it, scrutinizing the way the two hands moved a half of a second too quickly. Timing was perhaps one of the most vital aspects of existence, and Frank had all but begged for a sign that the times were changing. There was always a sign, gifted to him by the other side. All the while, Gerard could not tear his eyes away from Frankie looking the slightest bit distraught and seemingly absent, and it was disheartening for Gerard to think that perhaps his love was more adoring of faux voices who fed him lies than he himself. The thought of their love being mere infatuation killed him, and he was vexed by the situation. He had to bring him back to his arms; he had to kill the other side.

   "What did they tell you today?" he asked, desperate to pique Frank's interest and slowly reel him back in. Frank was malleable when pleased, and Gerard knew how to entice him most days. Frank turned to him with his large, doe-like eyes. Gerard was transfixed by the gaze they shared, and he awaited a response with bated breath.

   Calm and impassive, Frankie spoke to Gerard of his questionable realities. It was as if the Heavens had crashed down into Hell, leaving Gerard feeling conflicted, because he cared, he needed to care, but Frank was unhealthy, and there was virtually nothing he could do for him.

   "They told me that transcendence awaits me in the cold," he said. He always spoke in peculiar ways when asked of his  _"existential duties"_ , as he sardonically referred to them as, and he was aware of his odd tongue, but simply couldn't help it—there was no other way to communicate it, these things that the other side implemented within his head. Another way in which he was enlightened, he supposed, as he was always alone in these understandings of existence. He was the wiser in all walks of life.

   Gerard nodded gravely, pretending to interpret the message in the same way that Frank did, though he had never thought of them as true callings from a higher power. He saw them for what he believed them to be: delusions, ones that needed attention from someone who would quiet the raging voices, but what more could Gerard do than lend an ear? He would never trust Frank to be alone with himself, and it hurt him to turn his eyes away from the feeble creature.

   Gerard swallowed hard and then spoke. "You won't leave me, will you?" His voice was a muted demonstration of his pain, a downplay of what he felt within him, but when Frank looked back into Gerard's eyes, he felt what was inside of him still for a moment. He felt bitter and in love, but it was to be expected when in the presence of his Frankie, the most plagued and tortured of them all.

   "Not without a final parting, angel," Frankie said, and he pulled Gerard towards him. Their lips connected sweetly as their eyes fluttered shut, allowing them to immerse fully into the bliss, the euphoria that was their love. Gerard was still shaken by Frank's words which were more of a regretful promise than a comfort. His eyes suddenly stung, and he gripped Frank tightly in his arms as if his love could replace the resolute pain.

❁

**AN HOUR OR**  so had passed them by before Gerard finally said a tender farewell to his love. "Parting is such sweet sorrow," he had quoted, causing Frankie to erupt in giggles and blush, though it was a temporary elation that soon fled along with Gerard from Frank's window. His eyes followed the silhouette of his lover being swallowed by the darkness of the night. The leaves rustling beneath Gerard's footfalls were no longer heard, and his figure disappeared completely from Frank's sight. Frank found himself turning away from his window, leaving the small portal open for the breeze to flow through. It chased warmth out of his room, and it reminded Frank of Gerard's fingers, the chilled path they carved along Frank's own flesh.

   A sigh escaped the boy; he felt himself slip into something short of reality, and the lucid dream began.

   Moonlight flooded in through the glass of his window, and Frank was sat in his mother's rocking chair. He recalled the day he had lost her quite clearly—ingrained within his mind for all eternity, never to let him be, was the sight of her impaled on a sturdy limb with fingers of wood pointed at the sky extending from the tree that had been wounded by the shining headlights of their car. She had come through the windshield of the vehicle on the driver's side, her physiognomy made indiscernible by the blood that trickled from her head wounds; however, the wood pierced through her torso so quickly that it hadn't even begun to bleed until the paramedics removed her seraphic figure from the old limb.

  Frank felt no sorrow when he looked back upon her now, only longing, and it was more for her fate, a blessing he hadn't recognized immediately, rather than for his mother herself. He thought he got along just fine without her, unlike his father who now sat alone, as always, in the living room. Frank had trouble recalling the last time he saw his face, and the image of his own father had been distorted and nearly erased, replaced with the same picture of his father's back turned towards him and Frank's own words hitting a monotone silhouette in front of him.

   Frank set his eyes downward, studying the ornate patterns that littered the floor. He found himself standing, his legs carrying him to the living room, and just as always, he spoke to his father's back.

   "It's coming," he said, and his father's head tilted, but he could never meet his son's eyes. He could never find in himself the capacity to care enough to decipher his child's odd and cryptic words, and he himself had begun to fall victim to voices, a disease that had been transferred to him from his deceased wife just before she succeeded in transcending to a higher stage of existence, almost taking her child with her.

   Frank Iero, Sr. hadn't the slightest idea of what his son was on about, nor that it was one in the same with what he had been slowly coming to terms with in himself. So his own flesh and blood floated back into the darkness in his room, and he began to speak to himself and his friends, words falling from his mouth like prayers from the lips of latter-day Catholics in the town center. This was his tranquil psychotic break from reality.

   He fell against his floor, and he felt his mortal shell begin to molt and fall away from him. His head was in his hands, and thousands of voices whispered lovingly to him, nudging him further and further to his dresser drawer where the gleaming steel of a switchblade awaited him. His intentions were true, and not once did he feel pain, even as cool metal kissed him intimately and carved out a single word, three letters, in his ancestral tongue— _'DIO',_  bleeding from his abdomen. The soles of his soft feet were not bitten by the cold ground, and his arms never grew tired as he fashioned his length of rope around the rails of the road bridge over the eastern lake. Chill winds hugged his weathered body as he dropped his shirt on the concrete beside him. Rivulets of red running down the pale flesh of his arms, chest, and abdomen were the tears of weeping angels rather than his own life slipping away from him. His dark hair, tangled in his curled lashes, blinded him from anything he may have wanted to hold onto.

   The only pain he had been blessed with was the sharp prick of holly leaves dragging across his lips as he kissed his lover goodbye one last time.

❁

**GERARD FOUND HIMSELF**  walking with no particular direction in mind, the only thing in his head being the image of Frank in his arms, his cherubic countenance gazing up at him through thick lashes. He saw worlds behind Frank's crystal orbs, and it was in those worlds that he knew Frank wished to be. He couldn't find it in himself the capacity, the importance to become a world Frank wanted to burrow away in—he never found out just how to enter Frank's mind. But Frank would probe Gerard's head at all times, always knowing what new thought had come and burst up there. The idea of being less than fantasy in Frank's mind was unraveling, and he could feel himself bursting at invisible seams, his body like putty in careful hands and his heart crumbling in sacrifice. He was cruelly mistaken to think he could be a world and not just a lover.

   He had now given up on trying to sway voices to leave Frank be, taking the boy as far away as he could bear and give. In that moment, Gerard stopped, finding himself along the coast of the eastern lake, strong winds causing the sweeping current to send brown waves crashing on sand. He wanted to disappear into his lover and become one with him just to be close, even if he was never acknowledged as something of importance ever again. He kept walking.

   His head was down, as were his hopes and heart, and he was unaware of angels swaying overhead. When he found himself at the bridge, an area he didn't frequent often, as he thought the idea of cars rattling the structure overhead were far too tempting for both Frank and himself, he came to a halt.

   And finally, he tore his gaze away from his footprints in the sand, and he looked ahead, level with Frank's dangling feet.

   The sign of the times; it was carved into the soft skin just below his chest. Gerard's fingers had barely brushed the flesh there on only a handful of occasions, not nearly as much as his mouth had brushed the lips of the swaying body—even then, it was never enough. He yearned to feel the softness of them again, to relish in the messiness of inexperienced lovers with saliva dribbling from the corners of their mouths as desperation and closeness touched them as one for the very first time, over and over again. His lips were red, stained with fluids that Gerard had never wished to see flow from him in this way, or any way at all. The taste of Frankie was gone, and if Gerard kissed those parted and bleeding lips a final time, he'd forget the flavor of love and only remember the feel of swallowing blood from his holly.

   Morning fog had rolled over the world, dew drops in the few blades of grass that stood among the damp sand. Blood rolled down Frankie in smooth trickles, and they dripped down into small puddles in the sand. Gerard dropped and lay just below the body, his eyes glued to the scarred, self-sacrificed, modern Christ that hung above him in painful glory, the bearer of awareness for the critical disease that inhabited his mind alone.

   Gerard could not help but to wonder all along as he stared up at him, his swaying Lamb of God, questioning what lived within his Frankie that spoke for his ears only, that fed him the ideas that he relayed to Gerard in a hurried and exasperated panic that always left him feeling as if the fuckers had enlightened him. The voices crouched on his shoulders, the wisps of creatures, and his god damn mother, the bitch that got herself killed; that was who Gerard would always blame.

   Gerard blinked. There was a drip, and it was sliding, wet and slow down his cheek. His fingers were upon his own flesh after a long moment of heavy breathing and closed eyes—they came back stained in red, and then there was another. Gerard peeked up fearfully, knowing damn well what to expect, and there it was, the stream running down from Frank's delicate fingertips; the right hand, the callused and worked hand, the penning hand.

   And the drips continued to fall, short and varied sequences with little to no pattern between them, drips that touched Gerard in intimate ways that made him tremble. He closed his eyes once more, and all that existed in the world was lost to red falls and pulling waves that seemed to shake the Earth to it's dense core.

   It was Frankie touching him, Frankie feeling him, Frankie reminding him of love and other existences that eclipsed the pitiful rock intended to carry vessels of importance rather than art. Frankie was the angelic lamb of that existence, and he had sacrificed himself to the art.

   And suddenly, Gerard tasted copper, a bitter and metallic stab into the back of his throat. His eyes grew wide, awoken and destroyed by his grief induced daydream. Every fiber of his body became electric in a sudden state of shock and catharsis, and Gerard felt the blood of the angelic lamb upon his tongue in a way that stung. A scream crawled from the back of his throat, erupting into the heavy quiet and tearing it's way through the atmosphere to fall upon the ears of all men, telling them that their lamb had died.

   Windows of houses littered along the colorless hills and cliffs were suddenly beacons of light emanating from the small and insipid town. The voices of men coming to lay eyes on the divine lamb carried on the waves, and Gerard kept screaming, a sound so horrendous, worse than the cry of pain from a weeping father losing a son to the hands of the Lord.

   He did not wait for his sorrow to be interrupted, but rather lived fully within it, allowing it to leave him fully submerged in utter misery, disbelief, and understanding. He did not wait for men to come barreling towards the scene to make things in their tiny world right once more. He did not wait for a savior to drift from the sky and float across the earth to him on feet of silver and honey.

   He waited for death to snatch his soul from that very beach and drag him along ground of fire and thorns to his afterlife, a journey back into the arms of his winged lover suspended in the sky with robes of white and lips of cherry and vanilla.

   New life had finally found it's way to the beach in the form of men with women and children protected by slumber, encased in soft down and cotton back in their respective homes. The bare flesh of their feet tingled as it touched the cool and coarse sand, though feelings were beyond them in that moment, the fatal moment when their eyes found themselves staring into a sight that was not human. Frank was not human to them, this display, this emotion that he had wrought from their beings—it was of another world, a recessive class of existence.

   All that could be done by them was listening and seeing, as though for the first time. Every man after that day had prayed to spew blood from their eyes and ears, being blessed with the loss of their ability to register the horrific scene in front of them, far worse than any nightmare any of them had ever had the misfortune of running into.

   And still, Gerard screamed, for hours and hours, for what seemed like days for those who were forced to leave him detained in the custody of psychiatric professionals after the "incident", as it was carefully referred to as after the sorrowful day. He had somehow, with his breaking body and nearly bleeding throat, crawled towards the shadow that was cast by Frank's softly swaying body against the dull sun peeking out through the grey blanket of clouds muting it's brilliant light. He crumbled in the shade, watching the shadow dance across the flesh of his hand, synchronized with the gentle rock of the carcass hanging delicately from the bridge overhead. The clouds then shielded the world from light once more, and Gerard felt coldness emanating from the pit of his being. He realized he could not retreat to Frankie for warmth, and the thought was one of many that had shattered and torn his psyche so severely that he was incapacitated for years and years to come, this day, this juncture in time, being the site of the trauma he could not bring himself to forget.

   It was when he reached for Frankie's dangling foot that the men finally found themselves taking action. They could not allow Gerard to touch him one last time, though for what reason, they were unsure of. Recounting that day, many had thoughtfully concluded that they wanted to leave this torn and broken man with the feel of the poor boy when he was alive, for as one man who had experienced death close enough to touch had said, "you'll forget what it was like to feel their heart beat against your cheek," and he had been right. Already, in the recent wake of his tragedy, Gerard found himself recalling Frankie as tasting of copper and salt rather than vanilla and cherries, and it pained him to sneer at the bitterness of his own lover's lips, their true flavor only coming to him in dreams he could never quite remember.

   As his fingers reached helplessly towards his Frankie, hands clamped down on his wrist and shoulders, pulling him back from every direction opposite of his lover. He kicked, he sobbed, he shouted, he flailed, all of which did nothing in the way of swaying those men. His body was drug along the sand, leaving a clear print in his wake. Blood that had not once flowed within himself spattered his face like paint. His head was forcefully turned away from the scene, and all he was left with were the backs of his own eyelids.

   He could call forth memories and premonitions in kind with his eyes wide shut.

   He imagined the men cutting Frankie down, flashes of Polaroid cameras capturing his tranquil countenance paired with the disturbingly stunning demonstration he provided an entire generation with. They would film his descent back to the grainy earth below him in still frames, a sequence of photographs that would one day be studied by many a curious mind purely out of dark interest rather than to contribute to their psychological evaluations of the boy.

    Gerard held the scene in his mind, seeing without his eyes the moment the tattered figure of his lover touched ground. His body would crack and fracture along the sand to reveal dry bones, stained with the blood that once flowed beneath his flesh, wrapped in climbing ivy. Flowers of blush and cream would bud along the green vines. Moths that once beat frantically against his stomach in moments of both fear and anticipation would follow the blazing path of his soul towards the sky, though not entirely in the direction of a heaven among the clouds.

   An hour later, no such fantasy played when Frank's body was lowered, the only flora found within his body being the sharp leaves of holly poking the soft and cold flesh of his rosy lips that still held their tint, unlike his blue fingertips. Gerard was not present when the ropes were carefully cut, having been taken off of the scene, hysterical, and forced home.

   When the few men who had been privileged with stepping away from the site located Gerard's place of residence, they were met with a young Michael Way, seventeen years of age, with eyes suddenly flooding with confusion and concern. No words were exchanged as Mikey ushered the men inside, leading them to Gerard's bedroom as they carried him back. The men set Gerard, who had become eerily quiet aside from harsh breathing and quiet whimpers, down upon his bed, and Gerard did not thrash nor flail, only laid limply like a man of porcelain. In retrospect, the men had remembered Mikey as taking on the aura of a lost and concerned child viewing their father in distress. They'd assumed that the parents weren't often present, speculating from the emptied bottles of various alcoholic beverages and the lack of a feminine touch to the place, and found that Gerard Way had not only been a brother, but a father to the child his parents had left behind.

   They left him alone, alone to rot and wither before the eyes of his only family, and found themselves stepping quickly over the threshold of the Way residence.

❁

**YEARS LATER, MANY** could still recall the first few months after Frank's death and the condition it had left Gerard in. Blood stained the soft flesh of his face for three days of his stay at St. Mary's hospital in the psychiatric ward before timid and confused nurses that walked circles around him out of fear in light footfalls found him clawing at himself like a deranged animal with faulty programming. That was how they had begun to view him—an animal, caged and abused—and they awaited the day a human would emerge from behind the barred teeth of the gnarling creature they found themselves presented with.

   It had taken six staff members to restrain the flailing man—one for each limb to hold him still in his straps, and two others to carefully and thoroughly tend to his leaking wounds. Many speculated that it had been the sight of Frank's blood across his skin that threw him into the fit, when Gerard had finally caught his own reflection in the window he refused to move away from for the first three days. Others assumed it was a lack of sleep that sent him into a bout of paranoia and amnesia; however, it was the former that made it's way into the small-town papers, solely for it's unexpected aspect of romance. (Frank's untimely suicide had sparked interest throughout the town, the first event of importance to occur in a long while. When an anonymous doughty writer sent in a letter on Frank's father's behalf asking them to "please, let the memory of his loss die, and let this man sleep peacefully for just one night," it only piqued their curiosity, as days later after the letter had been received, Frank Iero, Sr. had been found dead in his late wife's rocking chair—a self-inflicted gunshot wound, entering just behind the right ear.)

   The two nurses assigned with the gruesome task of tending to Gerard's flesh wounds recalled the difficulty they'd found in removing the dried blood from beneath Gerard's chewed fingernails, though all could easily bring forth the memories of how frantically Gerard had taken to scrubbing his hands. He found himself at a sink nearly every hour, on the hour, scratching at his worn hands until they took on shades of red, pink, and sometimes violet, splotchy and accented with the blue ink of his veins. Years later, he said he could always still sense the dry and sticky feel of brown liquids decorating his features, and he lost himself to the sensation.

   Gerard, even years after the traumatic event, was broken. He remembered his exact thoughts just before he had found himself kissing his lover goodbye, and he could still recall the hopeless feeling of wanting to disappear as he was seconds away from finding that his lover had gone and left him.

   Confined within the white walls of St. Mary's, Gerard found himself among the mere handful of fuck-up's in the small town, nearly all of them being plagued by mediocre ailments at best. This, being as it were, left inexperienced doctors awaiting guidance from their superiors and unprecedented improvements in Gerard's condition, neither of which ever came. Gerard noticed his many, many solus hours, but never once felt lonely, for it was not too long before he felt Frankie's voice in his ear, his lips and tongue brushing his neck as he whispered words across his flesh. While it was obvious to anyone that ever found themselves in the presence of one Gerard Way, he himself did not set himself apart from his peers as running in a higher-class of sick. In fact, not once did he even dare to acknowledge the notion that he was surrounded by struggling and sorrow from others that existed alongside him. He found himself occupied with the ghosts of love letters.

   No, Gerard began to refuse his very existence in this world altogether for quite some time, denying the very life he had been cursed with and finding himself locked in Frankie's afterlife with him, holding him and loving him just as he always had done. Unresponsive and often found talking to a dead boy that hadn't spoken in years, Gerard was a hopeless cause, until one day, three years later, he had been encouraged to speak with the professional who had been assigned to him, and he finally did so. He plopped himself down in the head doctor's fancy red chair, and told him to "go fuck himself," if the nurses remembered correctly. What had stood out most to them was his fingers, tangled in what seemed to be an invisible hand, and the unhappiness and desperation that floated from his being that had them nearly in tears every time they walked past him.

   When Gerard smiled, his eyes were wide and his lips drew back just a tad too far. He had been found on many occasions crouched in a corner with his head in his hands, squeezing his eyes shut as he whispered the same poem in Olde English over and over again like a prayer. The staff's discomfort soon grew to sympathy, compassion, understanding, and finally acceptance. There came a day when they gave up on saving Gerard, as none of them had expected to find someone in desperate need of help, and they had no means to deliver that support. They left his recovery up to himself, and the head doctors, with no true interest in the wellbeing of their patients, let him be.

   Over time, he began to emerge from his defensive shell in small increments, and even shared his history with Frank. It started with small sentences, often coming in fragments, telling of Frankie's scent, his flavor, the colors in his eyes, even his smile that only frequented his face when in the company of Gerard. Though this was all considered progress, even if Gerard often spoke in metaphors and didn't care to explain himself, most found his unconscious ramblings to be perhaps the most telling of his internal pain, as he often dreamed of Frankie and spoke aloud to the hazy phantom. He maintained his state of catatonia for the majority of his stay with the St. Mary family.

   Gerard survived seven years without Frank after he had killed himself, flying from the edge of a bridge with the taste of holly leaves on his tongue. Many could still clearly remember, with eyes and hearts of pain, the day, the very moment, he had abandoned our world for a greater afterlife. It was 2:37 on a chilly Monday afternoon. Gerard had walked back into that very same room that he had three years after the incident, and he was alone, truly alone. Frankie's voice was not howling in his mind, and he had a perfect view of the eastern lake from the window he stood by. He had floated towards the fireplace that was situated in the middle of the far wall of the overly adorned office of the doctor who had been assigned to him. His cold fingers were wrapped around the metal of the poker. His final lament could be found in a tiny booklet located between the mattresses in his room, pages and pages scrawled with the same promising farewell:

_"Adieu, mine own lady,_  
_Adieu, my special_ _,_  
_Who hath my heart truly_ _;_  
_Be sure, and ever shall."_

   And with no eyes to bid him a teary goodbye, Gerard raised the poker to his forehead. The spike went through a total of four times before he collapsed to the ground, his eyes found wide open and his lips turned up in a smile as if seeing a long lost love for the first time in years.

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first oneshot I ever wrote, so apologies if it comes off as elementary and cliché; however, thank you for reading, as it's still a precious piece to me today. ♡ xomercy


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